"Dare not! you dare not—you, whom a word will put to torture greater than any you have dreamed of in your worst agonies; you dare not."
"Excellency, the Countess of Treviso; I am her servant."
"And the man who sent her to the work—his name?"
"Andrea, Count of Pisa, Excellency."
The priest stepped back as one whose curiosity was entirely satisfied.
"Ah! I thought so. And the price they paid you, knave?"
"Forty silver ducats, Excellency,"
"Ho, ho! so that is the price of a friar in Venice."
The bravo sought to join in the jest.
"Had they known it was the Prince of Iseo, it had been a hundred thousand, Excellency."